A Fragile Wife: Billionaire Romance (2 page)

Ken cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m so late, Bunny,” he mumbled.
Oh, Bunny.
There were few things that people didn’t know about them. The fact that Ken called his wife “Bunny” was one of those secrets. Not even Chloe had heard him call her that. “One of the attorneys was late for our afternoon meeting, so we ran over. So far over that I have to go in early tomorrow to finish the blasted thing.”

Lana stabbed her food, although gingerly brought it up to her mouth like the lady her mother tried to raise her to be. “That’s unfortunate.”

“I’m beat.”

If Ken cleared his throat one more time, Lana would probably have to strangle him. Instead, she ignored him, knowing damn well what he wanted. One of the things he wanted was to push his hand farther up her thigh, trekking beneath her skirt and playing with the tops of her stockings.
I’ve never met a man who loves tights and stockings more than this pecker.
All Lana had to do to get laid was show up in nothing more than lingerie. As long as that lingerie had sheer black tights with lace around the trim. She saved the fishnets for the nights she really wanted to dominate him. Tonight was not one of those nights.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Kenny.” She hoped he didn’t hear the lifelessness in her pet name for him. As she ate, drank, and considered her nerves, Lana put her hand on his knee as well, squeezing it for dear life. “I know you work hard.”

They both worked hard. Sometimes Lana stayed home, sometimes Ken stayed home, and sometimes they both went into the city to run meetings and deal business. Exhausting. They put on a front that had helped them castrate the masses for going on a decade now. The power couple. The power
hungry
couple. The formidable pair that no one could defeat unless they were truly that shrewd or had a whole army behind them. Lana and Ken were like peas and carrots. Yin and Yang. Love and lust. They complemented each other, filled in each other’s weaknesses, and had reached a point three months into relationship where they were already finishing each other’s sentences – and orgasms.

Two such intense personalities seemed doomed for the start. People didn’t think they would last more than three years. They defied everyone by making it five. They won their own bet by coming up on their tenth anniversary.

They were going on a second honeymoon. An island in the Bahamas where, as Ken whispered into her ear when he brought forward the plan, “they could fuck naked on the beach and nobody would care. Except maybe those bastard sharks and jellyfish.” Lana wouldn’t say no to beach sex, although she had to talk to her gyno about the possibility of her monthly nuisance rearing its ugly head during her second honeymoon. They were into some fairly kinky shit, but Lana drew the line at anything involving blood. At least they had pills for that now.

It reminded her that she also needed to ask about more permanent birth control options. She had been on the pill for years, since before meeting Ken, but by now she was about as interested in having children as she was interested in watching her husband sleep around with someone ten years younger than her. Unless it was Lana’s idea, of course.
Why not? Sometimes it’s hot seeing some twenty-year-old get a taste of my husband’s brand of fucking.
Only if she got to watch, though. And pick out the girl. And seduce her into her husband’s lap on his behalf. That was most of the fun.

She looked at him now. She looked at Chloe, walking through the dining room with refills for the wet bar in the corner. The maid glanced at the back of Ken’s head before leaving.

If he’s not fucking her now, she’s going to try it eventually.
Ken was handsome and stinking rich. Powerful. Chloe knew he could Dom, and she seemed like the kind of girl who wanted to sub for the right man. She had nothing to lose – except her job.

“Lana.”

She looked back at Ken, tasting the tip of his fork before patting the top of Lana’s hand on his lap. “What is it?’ she asked.

“I was telling you that I need to get up at five tomorrow. Will it bother you?”

She could be a light sleeper. If he got up before her, it sometimes caused her to wake up and not be able to go back to sleep. This was his polite way of telling her to wear her earplugs.

“I will wear my earplugs.” She forced a smile. “The ones you got me for my birthday.” What a romantic gift. To be fair, he also bought her a diamond watch and filled the house with fifty dozen red roses. The poor chef, who was apparently allergic to flowers, had to take an emergency trip into town to grocery shop and bring back take-out for Lana’s dinner.

Ken lifted her hand from his lap and kissed her fingertips. “You look beautiful tonight.”

“Thank you.” She reclaimed her hand in the name of using utensils and finishing her wine. “I thought of you while I freshened myself up for dinner. I thought, ‘How could I get my husband’s dick hard when he steals one glance at me?’”

Ken leaned in, his breath whisking into her ear. “It worked.”

“Hmph.” Lana pulled away. “Well, while you were working hard today, I…”

“Called your cousin to ask him to help you divorce me?”

Lana put down her utensils with a huff. “Stop it.”

“Don’t play coy, Lana. I heard you a month ago when you were drunk on the floor. Remember?”

“I said stop it.”

Ken shook his head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. I think this second honeymoon will be good for us.” He picked up the bottle of wine and refilled his wife’s glass. “Assuming you don’t serve me with divorce papers like Caroline did to Dominic Mathers right around the time we got married.”

“A woman after my own heart.” Lana admired any woman with the balls to divorce her husband on their twentieth anniversary.

“I’m sure she is.” Ken rubbed her arm, his eyes darting between her demeanor and the soft skin beneath his touch. “Are you restless, Bunny? After this shit of a week we’ll have a night or two to spare. We could go to the club and take in some of the energy.” He watched his wife drink her wine. “Or we could go to the Château and see our kitten.”

Neither appealed to her. Not going to the club and putting on her fake smile to tell the world she and Ken were still powering through people like an army. Nor did she salivate at the thought of going higher into the mountains where they kept a mutual mistress in a discreet manor.
She costs us a pretty penny.
They were full-time patrons, although she took on other clients when they weren’t around. But in return for their copious amount of money, Lana could call the Château up at any time and say they were coming for their kitten’s pussy whenever she wanted. They could take her out for dates, like to the club where they paraded her around like their slave. Money bought a lot of things. Including women more than willing to play the role of mistress.

That thought was the only thing to make Lana smile all day.

“Perhaps the Château, if we can spare the trip. I suppose I’ve been itching to pinch that woman’s nipples. For you, of course.”

“That’s my girl.”

Lana gave her husband her fake smile. The
real
fake smile. Not the one he knew about, the one she used to beguile others when they had a front to create. This was the smile she used for him. The one he assumed was her real, natural smile. The bastard had no idea – it almost made her feel bad for him.

Chapter 2

“My Wife Should Do Many Things.”

Lana pampered herself after her shower that night. She spritzed on her favorite scent, rubbing lotion into her legs, her arms, the back of her neck as she let her strawberry blond hair dry on top of her head. Her favorite white silk robe draped over her limbs and breasts. She wore nothing beneath, preferring to let the fresh air of the master suite stimulate her skin. Sure enough, looking into her mirror revealed both of her nipples poking through the silk.
Still as perky as the day I turned sixteen.
Lana was not the most endowed, and that was on her side. Ken always raved about her nipples more than anything else, anyway.

Sensitive nipples.
It didn’t take much, like the silk brushing against them.

Lana was alone. Her husband was in his office, finishing up preparations for the next day’s early morning meeting. Lana finished off her nightcap and then berated herself for drinking so much that day.

Eventually, she got up and went down the hall.

Ken was at his desk, back toward the office door. Lana quietly latched it behind her. Her husband only kept a meager fire beneath the stone mantle and the soft glow of his desk lamp. Glasses graced his head – Lana could see the black frames behind his ears all the way from where she stood.

She said nothing as she approached her hardworking husband. Lana let her hands announce her arrival, wrapping over both of his shoulders and giving a light massage.

“You need to come to bed if you’re getting up so early,” she said into the top of his head. From that angle, she could see the specks of steel gray emerging after working so hard for so many years. Ken was only nearing forty, but most of the men in his family grayed earlier than this. Lana looked forward to it – a little. There was something about a man with steel-gray hair making love to her with raw, experienced passion that turned her on.
At least something is turning me on right now.
She blamed hormones. It was better than facing the truth – that perhaps Ken wasn’t enough anymore.

Lana sighed as she rubbed her husband’s shoulders.

“I’ll be there soon. I need to finish this up and then unwind.”

“By the time you’re done unwinding, it’ll be midnight and you won’t get enough sleep.”

“Oh well.”

Lana pressed her thumbs into his shoulder blades. “Hurry up, then.”

“Keep touching me like that and I may be able to kill two birds with one stone.”

As he pulled folders toward him, perusing images of properties they were buying and selling, Lana continued to massage his shoulders and upper back. In any normal marriage this would be nothing more than a moment of one spouse taking care of the other. Except they weren’t normal. They weren’t vanilla. Everything they did in their intimate moments was laced in kink.

Lana could easily slip into dominant or submissive, demanding or serving at a moment’s whim. In public, she preferred the more domineering persona, including with her husband, but in private, she had no issues giving a well-deserving husband everything he needed to feel better after a long day at work.

It also helped that the longer she touched him, the more Lana awakened to her dormant sexual desires.
We haven’t had sex in days.
While not unusual sometimes, it did disconcert her after a while. In the early days of their relationship, they had sex every single day. Sometimes more than once. And “early days” meant as late as two and a half years. Unsurprisingly, it was marriage that eventually slowed them down. Marriage and going into business together. Suddenly they were in their thirties and more tired.

Lana still thought they had a healthy, voracious sex life. She craved his touch and he yearned for her. Other people came and went, but they were each other’s constant. Not just business partner, but life partner.

Or so she told herself for years. As of late, as many calls to her cousin and lawyer could attest, she second-guessed everything about her marriage. There was going through the motions, and then there was trying to improve things. She didn’t have the energy for either at the moment.

When Ken flipped the folders shut, she let out a sigh of relief. When he pulled a key from his pocket and opened the top drawer to deposit it for safe and confidential keeping, Lana ran her fingers through his thick head of hair and asked him why he didn’t put the folders in the second drawer, since this one looked stuffed full of business crap.

“I’ve got other things for safekeeping in there.”

“Oh? What?”

Ken slammed the drawer shut and locked it. “Nothing that would interest you.”

What?

Her husband leaned back in his chair, pulling his electronic cigarette from his front pocket. Lana moved away before she inhaled whatever scent he puffed on tonight.
I suppose it’s better than cigars.
Maybe that’s what he kept hidden in the second drawer.
That’s going to drive me crazy now.
She and Ken did not keep secrets. When people asked them how their relationship remained so seemingly strong, that was her answer.
“No secrets. We tell each other everything. I know where all of his things are, and he knows mine.”
Apparently it was bullshit.

Knowing there might be something between them made Lana do certain things. Like try to futilely get into her husband’s good graces, even if she was already in them. The mind didn’t always know that.

“My husband is so weary.” She leaned against his desk, loosening the sash of her robe and opening it enough to show him how naked she was beneath. “He should lie back in his chair to enjoy his cigarette.”

Her eyes bore into his. Determined, almost spiteful. Ken was the only man who would not flinch under such a gaze. He held it with his own, pushing back in his chair and taking the first drag of his relaxing smoke. Cherries. It would be cherries.